Society's ChildS


USA

Kentucky Rep. Dan Johnson commits suicide amid molestation allegations

Kentucky State Rep. Dan Johnson
© Kentucky Department for Libraries and ArchivesKentucky State Rep. Dan Johnson
Kentucky State Rep. Dan Johnson killed himself Wednesday night, only hours after denying sexually assaulting a teenage girl in his basement.

Bullitt County Sheriff Donnie Tinnell confirmed that Johnson, a Republican, shot himself while on a bridge in Mount Washington, Kentucky, WDRB-TV reported.

The Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting made public the allegations dating back to 2013. The alleged sexual assault victim had told police about the incident at the time, but they closed the case and declined to file charges after an investigation, according to the Associated Press.

Handcuffs

German soldier charged with allegedly planning to kill politicians in fake Islamist attacks

German soldier army
© Fabrizio Bensch / Reuters
A "right-wing nationalist" German soldier has been presented with new charges of plotting to carry out false flag attacks that would result in retribution against immigrants, after an earlier case against him was thrown out of court.

Federal prosecutors have charged 28-year-old former lieutenant Franco Hans A., who was arrested in April, and two of his accomplices with planning an act of violence and violating weapons and explosives laws.

"Motivated by a nationalist attitude, he planned to carry out an attack at an unknown time on high-ranking politicians and public figures who stood up for what the accused regarded as an especially refugee-friendly policy," said the prosecutors' statement. "He wanted people to believe that his attacks were related to radical Islamist terrorism committed by somebody who had been granted asylum."

Eye 1

Sadist: Jealous husband chops off wife's hand after she files for divorce

axe chopping block
© Alfred Schauhuber / Global Look Press
A husband's terrifying bout of jealousy left his wife maimed after he cut off her fingers one by one with an axe before slashing one hand off completely in a forest outside Moscow. The blood-chilling torture came after the woman asked for a divorce.

Margarita, 26, from the city of Serpukhov outside Moscow, survived an hour of medieval torture at the hands of Dmitry, her husband and father of their two boys. He first shattered both of her wrists, then began methodically chopping off her fingers on one hand, ultimately severing it altogether with an axe. He made sure Margarita would stay awake by beating her so that she would not lose consciousness.

After Dmitry's fit of rage subsided, the man took belated mercy on Margarita and drove her to the hospital, where he confessed to the crime and was taken into police custody.

Flashlight

North Korean defector tells Nikki Haley what she wants to hear: Forced abortions and dead bodies fed to dogs

barbed wire fence
© Chung Sung-Jun/Getty ImagesA North Korean defector described the horrific treatment she endured at the hands of the North Korean regime during an event on human rights Monday held by Nikki Haley, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
North Korean defector Ji Hyeon-A described the horrific treatment she endured at the hands of the North Korean regime during an event on human rights Monday held by Nikki Haley, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

According to Fox News, the panel, called "The Terrifying Experience of Forcibly Repatriated North Korean Women," was sponsored by the U.S., the United Kingdom, South Korea, Japan, France, and Canada.

China, alongside Bolivia and Russia, reportedly attempted to stop the event. What is Ji Hyeon-A's story?

According to Ji Hyeon-A, now a human rights activist in South Korea, Chinese authorities sent her, a defector, back to North Korea three times.


Comment: Which means she got out of the clutches of the oppressive North Korean regime four times. How did she manage?


Comment: There may be some or even a lot of truth in Ji Hyeon-A's story. But lets not forget that right now North Korea is the target of US propaganda that could be used to justify further sanctions or even military action. Therefore, it is likely that the story was exaggerated (if not entirely made up) for that purpose, so take it with a grain of salt.


Fire

Neolithic hubris and the epic of our awakening

clouds mountains
© Kevin Gill
The hubris of the Neolithic mind has been much in evidence recently; witness the sexual predation of the economically, culturally or politically powerful on the weak; the many refusals to acknowledge our complicity in global warming and the bone-headed military, economic and social aggressions of our statutory leaders (see also sexual predation, global warming, above).

The ability of humankind to control events has never been more tenuous. Like it or not, we have ceded much of that control to the realm of those non-human actors that we have long ignored or, more recently, actively aggravated: now, we are collectively suffering real-life home invasions by the dark powers that we had thought safely relegated to the past, buried deep in our subconscious, or rendered impotent by our technological prowess. Is it possible that the overt expression of our atavistic aggressions is stirred by new realizations of our impotence?

Or, can we trace our bad behaviors to the first scratchings on rock of anthropomorphic gods - of the fetishization of the female form and the celebration of the virility of the bull? Have we distanced ourselves from each other and the environment and, in celebrating our otherness (our alienation) are licensed to predate with impunity, like the gods of old?

Comment: See also:


Red Flag

Chavismo lives in Venezuela: US-backed opposition get virtually wiped off the municipal map during elections

Supporters of President Nicolas Maduro
© VTVSupporters of President Nicolas Maduro and Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution.
This is the worst electoral defeat for the opposition in Venezuela since 2005.

Dec. 10 will not only go down as a date to remember in the annals of Venezuelan history for the Battle of Santa Inés of 1859 during the Federal War, but will also be bitterly remembered by the bourgeois opposition for the electoral hammering they received at the hands of Chavismo in the municipal elections held on that fateful day in 2017.

The United Socialist Party of Venezuela, PSUV, painted the municipal map deep red by winning 327 of 335 (97.6 percent) mayoralties democratically contested leaving the arrogant and stubborn opposition with a bloodied nose as their destabilization strategy fell apart. The major opposition parties such as First Justice, Popular Will and Democratic Action did not postulate candidates and recommended abstaining to their supporters - which they duly did - handing these nationwide elections on a silver platter to President Maduro.

Voter turnout was 47.2 percent or just over 9.3 million votes. This was no surprise as opposition voters followed the example of lemmings plunging over a cliff and stayed at home blindly adhering to their leaders' abstention advice and not supporting the democratic process.

Cross

Pope Francis: Don't converse with Satan, he is 'more intelligent than us'

Pope Francis
© Max Rossi / ReutersPope Francis
Pope Francis has warned that Satan is an evil force who is "more intelligent" than mortals and will "make your head spin." He urged Christians not to let the Devil into their heads.

"He is evil, he's not like fog. He's not a diffuse thing, he is a person. One must not talk to Satan, if you start talking to Satan you are lost, he is more intelligent than us," Pope Francis said during an interview with Catholic television channel TV2000, which was published online by Italian newspaper La Stampa.

"He always pretends to be well-mannered with us. He is well-mannered with us priests, with us bishops. He comes in and it all ends badly if you do not notice this in time," he said.

Comment: Hmmm. Could this this be a veiled warning to his underlings about a living person they know, or is the Pope speaking metaphorically here?

Patriarch Kirill of Russia has made what are probably even more insightful statements recently:

Russian Orthodox Patriarch: End Times coming, so don't get all revolutionary!


Bullseye

Why the #MeToo movement should anticipate a much needed reckoning

As a much-needed reckoning happens in the workplace, look to college campuses for a note of caution.

Franken
In the final five years of his presidency Barack Obama's administration undertook a worthy and bold challenge: The elimination of sexual assault on campuses. In fact, Obama's team had a much more ambitious goal in mind. Vice President Joe Biden, the point person for the campus initiative, said at the end of his term that the administration was seeking "to fundamentally change the culture around sexual assault"-everywhere. New rules of sexual engagement between college students were written at the directive of the administration, but top Obama officials said they wanted these to be applied in the workplace and beyond. "You're going to change the workplaces you work in," Tina Tchen, director of the White House Council on Women and Girls, said at a 2016 event honoring campus sexual assault activists. "You're going to raise your sons and daughters differently."

They expected this transformation to take years. But with the daily toppling of powerful men who have committed sexual violations in Hollywood, the media, Congress and more, these changes have become seismic. The silenced have been given voice, and their testimony has resulted in the swift professional demise of perpetrators. Shocking descriptions of the behavior of powerful men have shown that it's not universally understood that it's unacceptable to display one's genitals at work or to sexually abuse colleagues.

Comment:


Bizarro Earth

Kentucky State Rep. Dan Johnson commits suicide on bridge in Mt. Washington amidst molestation accusations

Rep. Dan Johnson
Rep. Dan Johnson
Kentucky State Rep. Dan Johnson, who was under investigation for alleged sexual molestation, has committed suicide.

Bullitt County Sheriff Donnie Tinnell said Johnson shot himself on a bridge on Greenwell Ford Road in Mt. Washington, and the gun was recovered. Just before 5 p.m. Wednesday, Johnson posted the following message on his Facebook page:

Comment: Also see this:
Second UK Labour party staff member suddenly dies amid sexual misconduct claims in two weeks


Pirates

NYC terror suspect allegedly cites Israeli action in Gaza as motivation - mocked Trump in hours before attack

nyc bomb squad
© Andrew Kelly / Reuters
A man suspected of detonating a pipe bomb in a block-long tunnel near a New York City transportation hub, has revealed that Israeli actions in the Gaza strip, and the sight of a holiday picture, inspired his failed attempt to kill.

Akayed Ullah, 27, who lives in Brooklyn, allegedly carried out the attack at the underground 42nd street passageway near the Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan Monday. Ullah later told police he carried out the attack, which injured himself and three others, to exact revenge for recent Israeli military operations, an unnamed law enforcement source told CNN.


Comment: Translation: unconfirmed information.


Ullah, a Bangladeshi native who has been in the US for seven years, also reportedly told investigators that he intentionally detonated the pipe bomb in an underground block-long tunnel after he noticed a holiday picture in the corridor. The man further explained that he was inspired by ISIS-style Christmas threats, according to two unnamed law enforcement officials, WNBC reported.

Comment: CCTV caught the blast:

Hours before the attack, Ullah wrote on Facebook: "Trump you failed to protect your nation." Also included in the post, apparently, was a declaration of allegiance to ISIS:
Ullah, who planned to die in the attack, left behind evidence of his festering rage toward the U.S. Investigators scouring the suspect's Brooklyn home turned up a passport in his name with a chilling handwritten note. "O America, die in your rage," it read, the complaint says.

The investigators also found metal pipes, Christmas light fragments and screws that matched the items used in the clumsily constructed bomb found at the scene, according to the complaint.
...
The seeds of Ullah's radicalization were sown about 2014, when he started watching Islamic State videos online, the complaint says. Ullah told police he began doing online research on how to build homemade explosives about a year ago. He dedicated himself to attacking the U.S. after seeing instructions that "if supporters of ISIS were unable to travel overseas to join ISIS, they should carry out attacks in their homelands," the complaint reads.

Ullah, who sources said was most recently working as an electrician, gathered together the bombmaking materials about two to three weeks ago, court papers say. In need of a pipe, Ullah swiped one from his work site near the bus terminal, sources said. He built the bomb in his Ocean Parkway apartment roughly a week before the attack, according to the criminal complaint. The device, strapped to his chest with wires and zip ties, consisted of a 12-inch metal pipe filled with explosive powder and metal screws. It was attached to Christmas tree lights and a 9-volt battery designed to spark its detonation.
...
Ullah, who is recovering from burns and cuts to his hands and stomach at Bellevue Hospital, is expected to appear before a judge Wednesday.

His neighbors on Ocean Parkway in Kensington said he lived a shadowy existence. "He was a loner," said Joseph Ruggiero, 84. "When I'd see him, it would only be for an elevator ride. We never talked."

Ullah lived for a time at his parents' home on E. 48th St. in Flatlands, where he was spotting having a heated argument with his mother and dad late Sunday. "Everyone in the neighborhood heard it," said Youry Valcin, 21, who noted the trio were arguing in Bengali. Valcin said he spotted Ullah leave the home and hop into a car about 6 a.m. on Monday. Ullah looked "depressed" and "sad," Valcin said.
Ullah's family are reportedly "outraged" at investigators' tactics:
"We are heartbroken by the violence that was targeted at our city today and by the allegations being made against a member of our family," said the statement read by Albert Fox Cahn, legal director for the NY Chapter Council for Islamic Relations. "But we're also outraged by the behavior of the law enforcement officials who held children as small as 4 years old out in the cold and who pulled a teenager out of high school classes to interrogate him without lawyer, without his parents." It was not immediately clear if the 4-year-old or the teenager were related to the suspect.

The family continued to criticize the way the investigation was handled - even though the suspect, Akayed Ullah, allegedly launched a failed terror attack in a crowded city subway tunnel. "These are not the sorts of actions we expect from our justice system," the statement read. "We have every confidence that our justice system will find the truth behind this attack and that we will in the end be able learn what occurred today."